I want the end of October to come already, October 27th precisely. That is when MTV will finally begin airing the return of Beavis & Butt-head. There will be both beloved dumbasses (My favorite is Beavis), there will be Cornholio, there will be my 10-year-old self next to me watching with glee (I remember Christmas Day 1996, I was 12, Dad was in New Jersey, and Mom took Meridith and I to the movies at GCC Coral Square Cinema 8. She went with Meridith to whatever they saw, and I fairly ran into the theater that was showing Beavis & Butt-Head Do America). The new thing for the show is that Beavis and Butt-head will not only be commenting on music videos. There will be clips of Jersey Shore for them to do proper justice to (One clip has one of the girls of Jersey Shore saying, "I'm a whore, hello!" and Butt-head remarks, "That's how she answers the phone."). And there will apparently also be clips from 16 and Pregnant and YouTube, the latter of which doesn't make sense to me because even though we're in a far more advanced technological age than when Beavis & Butt-head first aired, the two don't seem like the kind to use computers. Better that they keep on watching TV.
Why can't I have November 1st yet? I need it! James Garner's memoir, titled The Garner Files, is coming out. It being only 288 pages is a little disappointing at first, but I'm hoping that he spends a good number of pages talking about Maverick, The Rockford Files, and especially Victor/Victoria, one of my favorite comedies. It also has an introduction by Julie Andrews.
I'll trade you a few of my DVDs if I can have November 15th right away. Toward late September, I read in The New Yorker an excerpt by Ann Beattie of her forthcoming book, Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life, and I went online right after and pre-ordered it on Amazon, since it squarely hit my passion for the history of the presidency and all those involved in it. Plus, it made me addicted to Beattie's writings, spurring me on to order her first short-story collection, Distortions, her first novel, Chilly Scenes in Winter, and The New Yorker Stories, a compilation of all the short stories Beattie wrote for The New Yorker.
Can someone please push November 22nd closer to me? Like pressed right up against me? 12 Angry Men is finally getting a proper DVD release as part of the Criterion Collection, which, in a two-disc set, includes Franklin J. Schaffner's 1955 TV production of Reginald Rose's play. There's also a TV production of Tragedy in a Temporary Town, which was written by Rose and directed by Sidney Lumet, who directed 12 Angry Men, and aired a year before 12 Angry Men was released in theaters. After this one, I'm hoping that Barfly, written by Charles Bukowski and starring Mickey Rourke, is released by the Criterion Collection.
And oh please oh please oh please oh please, someone just give me November 22nd right now, because scrolling through these pre-orders on Amazon, I just found out that Look I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany by STEPHEN SONDHEIM, one of my heroes, is coming out on the same day, the second volume of his vastly detailed books of lyrics, the first being Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes which came out in late October last year.
And I think I want to see Tower Heist when it comes out in November, chiefly because of Alan Alda, but also because it looks funny. Nice to see Eddie Murphy back as the way he once was.
